


Something Wild

by seeingsprites



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 04:45:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingsprites/pseuds/seeingsprites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bella Swan found herself honeymooning-alone-she knew it was time for a change. So to ease her jilted-at-the-alter blues, the plain, practical bookstore owner let down her hair, kicked up her heels, and a new, slightly naughty Bella was ready to take on the world... And that included Edward Masen, a downright, uptight, lawyer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:
> 
> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. Are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Prologue.

Edward Masen shifted the car into park and switched off the engine and lights. He peered through the late-night darkness at the house he had sought and found by taking the address from Esme's address book and consulting a map bought at an all-night liquor store.

The house was on of those low, flat-roofed structures, without any distinguishing features. Edward thought it a surprisingly average-looking place for an ex-lover of Esme.

Wondering ruefully if he'll ever see a good-night's sleep again, he rubbed his stiff muscles at the back of his neck. He had a problem with insomnia and hadn't been able to sleep last night. And tonight, of course, would end up a total loss. His eyes felt grainy, his tie too tight. He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger in a futile effort to massage away the tiredness, then loosened his tie.

Guilt, dread and anger had carried him this far. But now he hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? He spent several seconds debating, staring rather blankly at his watch. The time was 3am. He really hated to disturb the house's occupants at this ungodly hour.

If he had any sense at all he'd give up. Return to L.A and get on with his life.

But he couldn't. He was too worried about Esme. Growing up with her for a mother hadn't been his idea of the perfect upbringing. But still, she had done her best. He loved her, and he owed her. And the note she'd left behind for her stunned fiance when she ran out on her engagement party had rung a shrill warning in Edward's mind and heart,

Carlisle,

My secret sister needs me in Palm Springs, so I must go to her at her hotel there.

And I want to be honest with you, my love. I must see Jack Smith before I can marry you. I was in love with him once, long ago. And he lives there now. I must have some time to be sure. Please understand.

Yours,

Esme.

Carlisle had handed Edward the note without saying a word, and then told Edward very quietly that he wanted to be alone. Just thinking of the stunned, despairing expression on the older man's face made Edwards stomach twist with guilt.

Carlisle Cullen was the senior partner in Edward's law firm, Edward's mentor and father he never had.

Carlisle never would have met Esme Platt if Edward hadn't introduced them two years before.

But worse than Edward's guilt, even worse than his rage at his mother for pulling this stunt, was his dread.

"My secret sister needs me..." she had written. What the hell was a secret sister? Edward was afraid he already knew. He was all too aware of his mother's fatal weakness for odd societies and fringe groups.

Edward was terrified that if he didn't get to her soon, she'd sign over everything she owned to this secret sister. He was afraid she was throwing away her happiness and her solvency. As her only child, he just couldn't sit by and let her ruin her life.

Positive that he was in the right, he left the car. He strode purposefully up the walk, past the crouching shadows of spiky-leaved century plants and a pair of runty yuccas. There was a wooden plaque beneath the porch light that read The Smiths.

Edward rang the doorbell. When there was no immediate answer, he waited a respectable ninety seconds and rang again. A light went on in a side window. He waited some more and then the door, held by a chain, opened a crack.

A middle-aged woman, her head covered by pink foam rollers and a flowered hair net, peeked around the door.

Edward's quick mind drew the logical conclusions. This had to be the ex-boyfriend's wife. The likelihood that he'd find Esme wrapped in Jack Smith's arms had just greatly diminished.

"Yes?" Through bleary eyes, the woman peeked at him. He knew that his clothes and manner spoke well for him, and he was careful not to present a threatening stance. He gave her a moment to look him over before he spoke.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you..." Edward began.

"It's very late," the woman murmured, looking a bit less wary.

"I know, but I'm trying to find somebody and I was afraid if I waited until a more respectable hour, that "-he paused significantly, hoping he was taking the right track on this"- trail would be cold."

The woman narrowed her eyes.

"Are you with the police?"

"No." He cleared his throat officiously, and then dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. "This is a private matter." he whipped out a picture of Esme to show the woman.

The woman gave it one quick look and then swore in a distinctly non matronly manner. "I should have known."

"Then you've seen her?" Edward asked. "What's she done?"

She glanced over her shoulder, no doubt eager to get Esme in as much hot water as possible before her husband could come out and interrupt. "All I can say is, about seven last night, she came into the store that Jack and I own. She strolled in bold as you please and pranced right up to the counter where Jack was ringing up a sale. 'Hello Jack' she says in this low, sexy voice. Then grabs him by the neck, kisses him right on the mouth in a way that left no doubt they'd once been, well you she steps back, shakes her head, and prances out. Jack swears he hasn't seen her in forty years, but I-"

"Enid, what the hell is going on out there!" The man's voice came from somewhere in the back of the house.

"Nothing, Jack!" She grinned at Edward, rather slyly."He's sleeping in the back room tonight." She turned as footsteps approached behind her.

Then Jack, older than Enid and totally bald, was squinting around the door. " What's this? Man can't get no sleep in his own damn house."

"I'm sorry to bother you-"

"Then don't."

Then Edward stuck his foot in the door before Jack could slam it

"Please. Just one question."

"Make it snappy."

"Do you happen to know where Esme Platt might have gone?"

Jack crackled. "Nope." He shook his head, and a gleam came into his watery eyes. "What a woman."

"Jack!" Enid screeched from behind him.

"She didn't happen to mention anything about a secret sister, did she?"

Jack shook his head. "Get your foot out of the door, sonny. As you can hear, I got me a little domestic problem to take care of."

"Thanks." Edward removed his foot and Jack shut the door.

Edward stood on the walkway for a moment, hearing the arguing voices behind the door and wondering what to do next. Then he returned to his car.

The problem was that he had no lead at all on this mysterious secret sister. A call to Alice Whitlock, Esme's assistant at her hair salon, had revealed only that Alice "Though it was something to do with a woman's group," which told Edward nothing. Calls to two or three of Esme's closer friends had gotten him no more information. They all said they had no idea what he was talking about, but that Esme always had been one to get involved with "interesting" people.

Intent on finding some kind of clue, no matter how minimal, Edward took the crumpled note from the glove compartment and, by the dim interior light, read it again.

My secret sister needs me in Palm Springs, so I must go to her at her hotel there...

Edward switched off the light and sat in the total darkness, staring at the shadows of the surrounding mountains against the night sky.

How many hotels could there be in a resort town like Palm Springs?

"Too many," he answered his own question aloud with a weary sigh.

But what else did he have to go on? Zero.

He pictured Palm Canyon Drive in his mind. Several miles of street, packed with exclusive shops, restaurants- and countless hotels.

Grimly, he slid his key into the ignition and started up the car again. If he intended to visit every hotel in Palm Springs in hopes that his mother had registered in one of them using her name, he'd better get started. Somehow, he had to find Esme before her "secret sister" took her for everything she was worth.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Bella Swan was lazing abed in her honeymoon suite when a timid knock, barely audible in the bedroom, came at the sitting room door.

Bella snuggled deeper beneath the satin sheets, feeling deliciously self-indulgent. Then she rolled over. Her skin felt like silk, the result of a long, luxurious soak in a tub full of foaming bath salts.

The bath had smelled like fresh strawberries and so had the special soap that Esme had bought for her to use.

Half asleep, Bella smiled, thinking of Esme. Whatever else had gone wrong in Bella's life, she'd certainly hooked the gold ring when she drew Esme for her secret sister.

With her leather cosmetic kit under one arm, Esme had driven all the way to Palm Springs to come to Bella's aid. She had arrived at Bella's hotel at eight the night before, wearing a man's tweed sport coat tossed rakishly across her shoulders and waving a bottle of expensive champagne.

"I'll have you know I stopped in the bar to get us this champagne," were the first words out of Esme's mouth. Then the older woman shivered. Trailing a scent of musk, her signature scent, Esme waltzed into the room, shedding the tweed jacket. "It was freezing in the bar. Why is it they always keep the temperature subzero in desert hotels?" She'd tossed her makeup kit on the sitting-room couch. "But, as luck would have it, I met the sweetest little red headed man who loaned me his jacket. Chivalry, whatever they say, is far from dead. Now call room service and order us up some champagne flute and let's have a toast to sisterhood-and you new freedom that you're going to thoroughly enjoy!"

Now the morning after, Bella indulged in a contented yawn. With her eyes still closed, she went on smiling. As Esme had so wisely pointed out, life was all in how you looked at it. Bella could think herself as jilted at the altar- or as set miraculously free. When you saw it that way, the choice was a simple one to make.

Bella sighed, happily. It was going to be a beautiful day, because she was going to make it that way. After a while, she would get up and take a long, hot shower. Then she'd pamper herself with a leisurely breakfast in the hotels best restaurant- not the coffee shop today. Oh, no, she'd eat slowly and pleasurably on good china in elegant surroundings. And then she was going to buy herself a whole new wardrobe- and not one single item in it would be her usual beige.

Bella Swan might in actuality be nothing more than an ordinary, practical lady who owned a bookstore in Westwood. But that didn't mean she couldn't start dressing in bright colors. "If you want to be different, you have to be willing to change," Esme had said the night before. And Bella intended to take her secret sister's advice completely to heart.

Out in the other room, the knock came again, slightly louder and more insistent.

"Alright, I'm coming!" Bella sat up among the acres of bed linens and reveled in a long, lazy stretch. Then she allowed herself to gaze at her own reflection in the wall of the mirrors on the other side of the room.

Her plain brown hair now cascaded down around her bare shoulders. Esme had trimmed it in layers, so that the natural curl became apparent, and she frosted the ends, so it glowed with bronze highlights. Her makeup, which looked so good last night that she hadn't wanted to wash off, had a smudgy look now, but it didn't matter to Bella. Beneath the smokey eye shadow, her brown eyes shone back at her, full of mischief and promise. She looked golden and decadent, she decided, in her apricot silk teddy and absolutely nothing else.

The tapping on the door came again. Bella tossed back the covers and entered the suites huge bathroom. A fluffy terry-cloth robe, provided by the hotel, hung on a peg behind the door. She snared it and stuck her arms in the sleeves, belting it haphazardly as she went to answer the knock.

When she flung open to door wide, the response of the man waiting on the other side was extremely gratifying. He gulped and stared.

Bella granted him a dazzling smile. "Yes?"

He stuttered out a nervous explanation. "I, uh...last night I loaned my jacket to the lady in the room across the hall. But when I asked about her at the front desk just now, they said she'd checked out already. I wondered if you..." His voice trailed off as Bella casually re belted her robe.

It was obvious that he found Bella quite attractive. He seemed to be mesmerized by the bit of apricot silk that rebelting her robe had revealed

"I'd trade my Mercedes to be like you," Bella moaned to Esme the night before.

Esme had gazed measuring back at her for a moment, and then replied, "No, be yourself. Always." a mysterious smile crossed her full mouth. "Besides, you're going to be surprise at what a knockout you are once I'm through with you."

As the redheaded man stared at her with his mouth open, Bella felt naughty-and wonderful. Her new look was having its intended effect. The poor man's face flamed as red as his hair.

"There's a siren inside of everyone of us," Esme had told her. "It's only a matter of bringing her out."

Of course, Bella had no intention of indulging the siren within herself full-time, but it couldn't hurt to flirt just a little every now and then. She upped the wattage on her smile, feeling like a completely new and beautiful woman, like someone just a little wild on the brink of a grand adventure.

She heard Esme's voice again in her mind. "So what if your fiance jilted you? Let him go. Someone better will always come along-take it from a sister with a wealth of experience in the games of the heart. Now. To go ahead with the honeymoon anyway was a stroke of genius. But you ruin the whole idea if you just sit here in your room and mope." Green eyes flashing, Esme had waved her expensive shears, which glittered brightly in the light of the nearby ginger jar lamp. "What you need is adventure, something different and utterly wild. First, though, we get rid of the Marian librarian hair and brighten up the makeup. We're talkin makeover here, darlin'. We're going to totally change yourself image, starting with what you see when you look in the mirror..."

The redheaded man, still waiting for his coat, cleared his throat uncomfortably. Bella went on smiling.

What a wonder Esme was, Bella thought with fondness. Esme was the sister she wished she'd had, the mother she should have had, a true friend for life. Esme was-she paused in her mental testimonial as the man's first words to her suddenly sunk in.

"Excuse me, I wasn't listening," Bella said. "Did you say Esme had already checked out?"

"That's what they told me at the desk."

Bella frowned. She's thought perhaps she and Esme would hit the stores together today. For a moment she felt cheated. But then that sense of promise and excitement, Esme's gift to her, overrode the rest.

Of course. How like Esme to do what needed to be done and then on her way. Like a modern fairy godmother, Esme had waved her magic wand. And like a fairy godmother, she'd disappeared before the dawn. And, of course, they would meet again in L.A soon enough.

Bella's admirer made a questioning noise n his throat. Bella realized she'd kept him standing there waiting for several minutes while she privately rhapsodize about Esme.

"I'm sorry. Your jacket, you're looking for your jacket?"

He nodded, smiling bashfully, and she noticed a gap between his two front teeth. She thought it charming because it suited him, with his shyness and his ready blush.

"Yes, I think I can help you there." She asked is name and he said "Ricky." She stepped aside and gestured him into the suite.

The jacket was draped over one arm of the couch. She picked it up and gave it to him.

"Thanks," he said. He was looking at the champagne bottle, upended in the bucket of melted ice, at the two champagne flutes on the glass coffee table. "I hope I didn't disturb you."

Bella grinned and took his arm to lead him back to the door. "Well, I am on my honeymoon."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I really am." he was blushing furiously. "I hope your husband-"

They reached the door which stood wide open. Bella went on tiptoe and kissed him on his cheek.

"Don't you worry about him," she said. "He's a very sound sleeper. In fact," she lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, "Until you brought him up, I'd forgotten all about him."

Ricky blinked and his blush spread,, until even his ears turned red. He looked nervously at the half-open door to the bedroom. "Er, ma'am..."

"Bella," She said.

"I really have to go now."

Bella shrugged, and tried to keep from giggling out loud.

"And ma'am..."

"Yes, ricky?"

"You really shouldn't talk like that." He was already backing down the hall.

Bella leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "I just have no idea what's gotten into me."

Ricky, visions of a large and jealous husband presumably flashing through his brain had reached the elevator. He barely pushed the button when the doors slid wide, he disappeared inside, not glancing in Bella's direction again.

Remaining propped against the jamb, Bella stuck both fists in the pockets of the robe, looked down at her bare feet, which had been so beautifully manicured by Esme and realized she's probably carried the joke a bit too far. She'd liked Ricky. And teasing about her nonexistent husband had been rather mean. In her own mind or course, the joke had been on herself. But Ricky hadn't known that.

Mentally chastising herself, Bella pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear and then captured her index finger lightly between her teeth. The new Bella might be wild, she decided but in the future she was going to stop being mean.

Softly, behind her, someone coughed. Bella turned her head toward the sound.

A man stood, behind and across from her, in the doorway to the suite that had been Esme's.

Over six feet tall and expensively dressed in a pinstriped suit over a white shirt, he wore cordovan shoes and a nubby silk tie in a deep maroon that was echoed in is precisely folded pocket handkerchief.

Thick, dark brown hair, with hints of penny copper was sticking out everywhere around a sharp, angular face. His jade-green eyes assessed her cooly.

Through he appeared a little tired, and his tie was slightly askew, everything about him shouted success-and the absolute assurance that things would always go the way he made them go. He was precisely the sort of man the old Bella would have thought too exemplary to be true. She would have been intimidated by him. But new, slightly naughty Bella, decided he was smug and superior and not her type at all.

Having defined him as of absolutely no interest to her, she didn't have to be mortified that he had probably just observed her kissing a strange man goodbye in the hallway while wearing little more beneath her rope than a wisp of silk and lingering scent of strawberry bath salts.

"Sorry to interrupt your thoughts," he said in a quiet, well-modulated voice. His hesitation before the word "thoughts," told her clearly that he'd already assumed her most strenuous mental activities revolved around such quandaries as what to do about a broken nail and how to rid one of boyfriend before the next arrived.

Bella decided she loathed him. If he wanted to think of her as wild and naughty, well, fine, let him think it. She lounged more obviously against the door. "Exactly how long have you been standing there?" Though she didn't care in the least what he thought, she couldn't help asking how much he'd seen.

"Long enough," he replied. Bella felt the flush creeping up from between the fluffy facings of her robe and ordered it back down. At the end of the hall, the elevator doors slid open again. The man glanced toward the sound. There was something in the movement, in the way he tipped his head, that Bella found obscurely familiar. The doors glided shut again, no one getting on or off.

Green eyes focused on Bella once more, and the moment of familiarity ended.

The interruption had served a useful purpose, though, in giving her time to realize that this standoff in the hall with an arrogant stranger was not one bit wiser than teasing the bashful Ricky had been. The new Bella needed a lesson in the discretion from the old. She reached for the door handle.

"Wait a minute, Ms-?" he managed a reasonably polite smile. " I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't throw it," she snapped tartly, then relented enough to tell him. "Bella Swan."

"Just one question Ms. Swan," he went on after a moment.

"Alright."

"The woman who was staying in this room- do you happen to know where she went?"

"What woman?" Bella asked without missing a beat, feeling a strong protectiveness toward Esme well up within her. She had no idea what this man wanted Esme for; maybe Esme didn't want him to find her. And besides, she also had no idea where Esme had gone.

"Caramel hair, sixty but looks younger." The man rattled off a shopping list of Esme's physical attributes in a deep, businesslike voice. "Green eyes. About five foot seven. I have a picture." he reached into his inside jacket pocket.

"No." Bella shook her head. "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't help you at all." she shut the door in his handsome overbearing face.

Edward stared at the closed door and debated whether or not to knock. The woman knew something he was sure of it. As a lawyer, he was trained to notice every nuance of voice and gesture for clues to the truth beneath an artful lie. He'd seen the flash of indecision cross that gorgeous face hiding something. Edward raised a determined fist and rapped sharply on the door.

"Go away," the infuriating creature on the other side called after a moment.

He knocked again.

"I'm going to call security," she threatened in a sweet little singsong, still not opening up.

Edward waited. He was betting she wouldn't be able to resist checking to see if he's truly gone. Beautiful provocative woman like this one were like cats-too curious for their own good.

But Ms. Swan did the unexpected. Minutes passed, and she didn't reappear. She was all he had that even remotely resembled a lead, he knew he was going to have to wait her out.

Disgusted and annoyed, he want back across the hall to the suite he's rented when the desk clerk had told him Esme was already gone. He took the small vanity chair from the dressing area and, with the door open just a crack, positioned himself to be ready when his quarry ventured out of her lair.

The time seemed to creep by. Edward spent it studying the pattern in the Navaho rug underfoot, staring at the prints on the walls, and listening to his stomach, which hadn't been fed since the afternoon before, complain.

Precisely forty-seven minutes later, his patience was rewarded. She emerged, humming and smiling to herself. All that wild chestnut and gold hair was piled every which way on her head so that little strands of it corkscrewed down her neck as she turned to lock the door of her room. Surprisingly, she was wearing a perfectly modest pair of tan Bermuda shorts and a simple white shirt.

He considered following her surreptitiously, and then felt like a fool. He wanted an honest answer as to what she knew about Esme, and nothing more. Therefore, sneaking around behind her while she cut through the Desert Fashion Plaza would be ridiculous.

Edward would find out soon enough-by demanding the truth.

In fact, watching this brown haired seductress, obviously fresh from an invigorating shower- he, of course, hadn't dared leave his post for a shower, though his fastidious nature cried out for one- and ready to waste away her day prowling Palm Springs for new diversions, he began to feel more than a little provoked. And then it occurred to him that feeling provoked was irrational and he didn't even know this woman; what she did with her time was no business of his. Realizing he was responding irrationally provoked him even more.

Disgusted with himself, furious at Esme and fed up with this woman whom he didn't even know, he quietly rose to his feet, stepped silently into the hall and inquired in a voice so level and controlled, said, "Ready for breakfast?"

Bella spun around.

So he hadn't left after all, she thought. It appeared he'd been lurking in Esme's suite, waiting for a chance to pounce. He strode toward her, looking so calm and determined that she had to admire his composure, at least. She noted with a wayward stab of satisfaction, though, that his tie was even more askew than it had been when she'd shut her door in his face. Mr. Impeccable, as she'd begun to secretly call him, was becoming more peccable by the moment.

"Not with you," she replied in dulcet tones.

But he's already taken her arm. Surprised by the warmth of his touch, she fell in step with him.

"I thought I said no," she told him without much conviction as they waited for the elevator.

"A lady always has the right to change her mind," he countered pleasantly. His stress on the word lady was so faint that she wisely decided to let it pass.


End file.
